


A Better Day

by plumandfinch



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 01:44:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10583823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumandfinch/pseuds/plumandfinch
Summary: It’s when she is seven and Michael, in an uncharacteristically thoughtful gesture, saves up his pocket money and presents her with a professionally hewn slingshot from the toy shop on the high street.





	

It’s when she is seven and Michael, in an uncharacteristically thoughtful gesture, saves up his pocket money and presents her with a professionally hewn slingshot from the toy shop on the high street. 

 

She still remembers how the clumsy wrapping had fallen away and the thrill at realizing what it was. Without thinking, she had thrown her arms around him in joy, almost knocking him over. There is an unspoken agreement that this won’t be mentioned to their mother

 

He regrets it later, of course, when he is trying to flirt with Susan from down the lane and receives an acorn squarely in the middle of his forehead coming from the direction of a suspiciously wriggling tree.  

 

\--

 

It’s when she is fifteen and Shelagh Cunningham comes back down from London with an elegantly tied Yardley’s gift box. 

 

The lipstick is encased in gold and called Holly-Red and Peggy thinks it’s possibly the most lovely thing she’s ever seen. The rest of the girls on her floor clamor to use it but even prickly Marjorie Brown declares that it looks best on Peggy. 

 

Madame Chesney gives her a demerit for wearing it to French, of course, (“ _ Mademoiselle _ _ Carter, qu'est-ce que votre mère penserait?” _ ) but Peggy digs her heels in after they come back from spring hols and soon no one can remember her without it. 

 

\--

 

It’s when she’s twenty-three and Chester Phillips gruffly hands over a small bar of lavender scented soap two whole weeks before her actual birthday. She hesitates to use it, keeping it in her foot locker and savoring the light scent that drifts up every time she cracks the lid. 

 

She caves after they spend four days in the mud and other things she doesn’t spend too much time thinking about. The layers of muck come off with her Army-issued carbolic but then she spends three extra heavenly minutes luxuriating in lavender. 

 

When she returns to it, her tent flap is suspiciously askew but her alarm turns to great amusement when she sees the small pile of assorted offerings; precious chocolate, cigarettes, a petite bottle of whisky, an ungainly bouquet of wildflowers, and an immaculately drawn miniature of her own face that makes her heart pound solidly in her chest. 

 

She is distracted by scuffling and whispers coming from outside of her tent. 

 

“Gentlemen, if you make one second of fuss, you will never hear the end of it. GIve me five minutes and I’ll come share the whiskey with you.”

 

“Told you she’s a great dame,” she hears Dugan say as her boys make their way to the mess. 

 

\--

 

It’s when...well...she’s not quite sure how old she is now. Does one start to count again, after a second chance? She feels twenty-three again, lithe and nimble, unencumbered by pain and stiffness.  

  
They are lying in bed, wrapped in each other, when she sleepily wonders if he remembers it is her birthday. He’ll probably have forgotten to get her something (he hadn’t, she learns later) but if they do nothing but stay as they are, she thinks that she’ll never have had a better day. 


End file.
